Proto-Gabrielt language
Proto-Gabrielt (often abbreviated as PG or P-G) is the theorized common ancestor of the Gabrielt languages. Its proposed features and reconstructions have been greatly influenced by the current grammars and features exhibited by the modern Gabrielt languages, as well as historic evidence of migrations and settlements of the Gabrielt region. There is no attested record of the language ever existing, and is purely a reconstruction made by linguists beginning in the early 20th century.
A great deal of work has been carried out in the reconstruction of the language. The reconstruction and research of the Proto-Gabrielt language mainly has been done by an over-arching organization funded by the Gabrielt government called "The Linguistic Reconstruction Comittee of Gabrielland." Starting from initial reconstructions done by previous linguists in the early 20th century, modern linguists have corrected and refined the features exhibited by the early linguists in accordance to the promulgation and spread of newer theories and laws affecting the language. Many reconstruction techniques such as the comparative method were applied in determining reconstructions and more importantly sound laws which affected the different branches of the language.
It has been thought that the Proto-Gabrielt language was not a static langauge, and is in fact a period in the language's development before the attested records. Linguists now classify four stages of the language's devlopment, namely Pre-Gabrielt (5000-4000 BC), old Proto-Gabrielt (4000-2500 BC), middle Proto-Gabrielt (2500-1000 BC) and new Proto-Gabrielt (1000-500 BC). It is also theorized that the language remained a single spoken language until what is now commonly known as the "Great Split", in which the modern branches of the Gabrielt language family began to take place. It has also been theorized that the original speakers of the Proto-Gabrielt language lived on the southern plains of the Granya mountain range, expanding outwards at a slow pace with the advent of farming and other domesticated animals.
The migration of the original Proto-Gabrielts caused communities to split up and become isolated from one another, causing gradual shifts in the structure and overall features of the language. Once dialects, these proto-languages eventually became the ancestors of the modern regional Gabrielt languages still spoken in Gabrielland alongside the Standard Gabrielt language as the lingua franca. In each of the branches, the mutations and how the shifts happened occured in different ways, resulting in different structures and features of differing branches. Today, the Gabrielt languages are the dominant language in Gabrielland and is one of the nine official languages of the Dokodo Union.
Contrary to popular belief, Literary Gabrielt and Proto-Gabrielt are completely different concepts, with Proto-Gabrielt predating Literary Gabrielt by several hundred centuries from the first attested records of Literary Gabrielt through carbon dating. Although the name implies that Literary Gabrielt is the ancestor of all modern Gabrielt language, this is not the case as Literary Gabrielt is the mere ancestor of one single branch of the Gabrielt language which happens to dominate the linguistic scene of modern Gabrielland as the other branches of Proto-Gabrielt have become extinct or have been sidelined.